Things Even Pro’s Love to Forget
As a writer/reporter, there is a pet peeve I have, which has bugged me since my early days of publishing, and having my own website. The pet peeve I am referring to, is regarding surfing the web, and communication with your audience. You will find that many techie’s, professionals, markets and yes, even clients, forget that their audience may NOT be computer savvy. How horrible!But nonetheless, true. We forget that many people may be coming to the computer strictly for information and not understand the computer lingo. Think about this a minute.
A student, though in the process of learning the computer, needs to look up some homework. Do you really think he knows what “link” or RSS feed means? He will use the simplest method to get the info he needs…so it may not be yours, if you always insist on being a computer “geek” as opposed to making sure that you hit as many audiences as you intended.
Another case in point. In a shopping cart website, there were so many beautiful things displayed by the artist and without a doubt, she can capture the audience’s attention with her artwork. In illustrating her artwork however, she took an icon and dressed it up with artwork and presented it for sale to her clients. Well, it was done beautifully. However, what if the person that went to her site to shop, didn’t know what that icon was, (everyone computer savvy would know) and though she might need and even want it, she didn’t know that’s what she wanted or needed. Get it?
Here’s another example. A friend of mine hired a pro to design and maintain a website. When doing the website, the pro would talk to the client in simple (maybe to you or I) computer tech language, i.e, html; css; even easy terms like blogs. Now this is great, except for one thing…We just ASSUME that the client knows these terms, when in fact, they know nothing of those terms; thus he/she may be made to feel dumb, which is something you don’t want a client to feel who is paying YOU to know the terms, not them.
There are many reasons, people may hire you. It could be for your expertise; it could be for your artistic ability; it could be because your rates are better..or, it could be because they know what you are talking about! Learn to use one sentence explanations on your websites for pertinent information that you want your audience to know…especially if your selling a product or service. Just remember, that your audience is not always going to be computer savvy geeks..that’s why they come to you! So, jump out of your mainframe, grab them by the hands and walk them through it simply…and smile as you do it. You will find they come back to you or your site, often!